Ephemera
by Malteaser
Summary: The life and times of Effie Trinket


ONE

Euphemia Mayme Trinket was born to Epimetheus and Derdriu Trinket on July 19th. The Avox gave birth to her shortly before the 50th Hunger Games ended, and out of respect for the event, the Trinkets were not notified until after Haymitch Abernathy became a Victor.

They brought her home in time for the Victory Interview, the surrogate Avox trailing alongside, ready to take her back if she became fussy. Natural child-rearing was all the rage in the Capitol, and their darling Effie would be nothing less than cutting-edge.

TWO

They returned the Avox when Effie was six. They didn't tell her they were going to do it- she simply came home one day and there was a new Avox. Effie screamed and cried, and her father yelled, and her mother offered to trade them back and her father yelled some more.

When it was finally all over, her father came and rubbed her back and broke the news gently to her. The Avoxes were criminals- traitors, and murderers- before they were Avoxes. They had wanted to hurt her, and deep down they still did. She shouldn't let herself care so much.

"Even Avo?" she asked.

(Avoxes didn't have names-but she'd needed to call her something, so at the age of two she'd come up with the name Avo.)

"Even Avo," he confirmed. "I'm sorry you got hurt, Effie. If I'd known you were getting so attached, I would have traded her in sooner."

They don't keep an Avox for more than a year after that.

THREE

When Effie was twelve, she was finally old enough to watch The Hunger Games. Naevia Crane has invited her over to watch- school is out, and the Cranes are a highly connected family, so her parents had the family's Avox of the year pack her things and bring her to their complex.

The Cranes had a beautiful complex, spanning three stories, and with an entrance way that had a small garden with a fountain in it. The Trinket Avox was directed to store her things in an upstairs room, while Effie herself was ushered into the Cranes' home theater.

Besides Naevia, there's Ilithyia Lathrope, Lilligree Petrice, Laeta Tabor, and Ilona Masque. Naevia's older brother, Seneca, was there too, with his friends Oenomaus Templesmith, Constantine Mather, Eirenaios Salt, and Nehemiah Tregrows.

The 62nd Hunger Games lasted for twelve days. Effie had intended to stay awake for all of it, with the help of the little chewable fruitphetimines the Cranes provided ("Not for child under the age of sixteen" the jingle playing in the corner of the screen kept reminded them, but no one paid attention to that) but when her heart started beating too fast around day nine she got scared, so she stopped taking them and then crashed and missed most of day ten and all of day eleven.

When she finally woke up it was early enough on day twelve that almost no one else was up. It was just her and Seneca Crane, watching the boy from One and the girl from Two stalk each other through the tall grass.

Seneca was enthusiastic, keeping up commentary that drowns out even Ceasar Flickerman's interviews with Claudius and the mentors for One and Two. He knew a lot about the Games- not just the history, which anyone could know, but how they were made, how they worked.

"I want to be a part of them, when I'm older," he admitted.

"Me too," Effie replied. She hadn't known until the words left her mouth, but she did, oh she did want it. "Me too."

Later that day, Enobaria Meno sank her teeth into her competitor's throat, and became a Victor.

FOUR

Seneca wasn't her first kiss. That had been Oberon Nash, who had done it on a dare, and then refused to be stopped for a time, until she finally had to leave ladylike in the dust and start beating her fists against his back.

The first time she kissed Seneca was for luck, just before she left to sit her exams. She was sixteen- he was eighteen, had already passed his exams with full honors, and been accepted into an apprenticeship with the Gamemakers. She had been hoping that his luck would rub off on her, and maybe it worked, because she passed, and was accepted into the Escort Program.

She watched the 67th Hunger Games with Seneca. She fell asleep under his arm during day five. He fell asleep on her lap during day eight. On day fifteen, Johanna Mason threw her ax into the girl from Two, and became a Victor: she and Seneca kissed again in celebration.

FIVE

She nailed her exams when she finished the Escort Program. Her final essay was retained by the Program as an example of what a final essay should be: the question had been "What purpose do the Hunger Games serve in our modern-day society?" and after spending so long sharing her passion for the Games with Seneca she knew exactly what to say and how to say it.

_It brings all of Panem together. More importantly, it brings the Districts closer to the Capitol. If you think about it, the Hunger Games are a metaphor: the Districts are uncivilized, barbarous places, but the Hunger Games show them that they don't have to be. A Victor becomes a Victor by overcoming those odds against the uncivilized, barbaric Districts, and the uncivilized, barbarous people who live in them and in doing so, they get to come to the Capitol, and learn to become better._

There weren't any positions available for an Escort when she graduated, though she was pretty sure that she would be the first one called if a position opened up. She took some seasonal positions instead: nothing permanent, nothing that made her look like she wasn't ready and waiting to _really_ become part of the Games. She reported on some designer mutts for the TVC-54. She did some voice-over work on historical propos for District children. She bided her time.

SIX

She and Seneca were never really together. They didn't live together, they didn't get matching dye-jobs, they didn't tattoo each other's names on their wrists or anything else that a real couple would do. That made it difficult to pinpoint when they'd fallen apart, or even if they had something that could fall apart in the first place.

SEVEN

She got the call that Gloriana Hayworth was resigning just before her twentieth birthday, allowing Ameline Swan to advance to District Eleven. She was the new District Twelve Escort. And the Hunger Games would be starting in less than a week.

She had been warned what to expect, but it was still a shock to actually arrive in Twelve. For all that she'd known people didn't pay very much attention to their personal appearance out this far, she hadn't expected Twelve's population to look like the same four people repeated over and over again at varying ages. The sullen-faced girl with her hair in a braid, standing in the twelve-year-old pen could be the younger sister of nearly three-quarters of the eighteen year olds standing right in front of her.

'How do they tell themselves apart?' she wondered, before getting on with her duties. She was a professional, after all, and couldn't let herself be distracted by trivialities.

"Ladies first!" she said, trying to inject some of the proper enthusiasm the Reaping should inspire into the crowd.

Haymitch was another surprise. She'd known, of course, that he was a bit of a drunk, but she hadn't known how much being a drunk reeked. His breath alone would probably be disqualified from the Arena, on the grounds that it could be used as a deadly weapon. It had always looked so charming from the television screening, his stumbling and leaning in on his handshake with the Escort.

Oh well. Disappointing as it was, it wasn't like she'd be stuck here forever. In due time, she could be promoted to another, better district. Sooner, if one of the Twelve kids would manage to play the odds well enough to win.

EIGHT

The 70th Hunger Games were won by Annie Cresta of District Four.

The 71st Hunger Games were won by Savage Wun of District One.

The 72nd Hunger Games were won by Danyeel Havelock of District Four.

The 73rd Hunger Games were won by Jessaline Warrick of District Five.

During the Reaping of the 74th Hunger Games, Effie pulls out the name Primrose Everdeen from the Reaping Bowl, and for the first time ever, District Twelve has a volunteer. She was somewhat surprised to find that their volunteer was Miss Primrose's sister, because the two looked nothing alike, but she supposed that they must have had different fathers. That sort of thing was done here, right?

But everyone knew about that.

The 74th Hunger Games were so exciting, so invigorating- the tragedy of Peeta's love for Katniss played out for all of Panem, and all of Panem screamed for joy when they learned that it didn't need to be a tragedy after all.

Effie gasped along with her country when the rule change was reversed, and like everyone else, she wept for joy when they were both allowed to live after all, against all odds, against even the rules themselves.

There was hardly any time to track down Seneca during the Victory Interview and all that follows, she was so busy. This unprecedented win was going to do wonders for her Career, and on top of her duties as a Victor Escort, she had to look her absolute best. She planned on talking with Seneca after she returned to the Capitol.

By the time she returned to the Capitol, Seneca had already been executed.

NINE

She has no idea what had gone wrong, but the Victory Tour was not right at all. District Twelve turned out to be one of the least sullen Districts- even the Peacekeepers in Eleven were rude to her! To her, the Escort who had produced two Victors from the same Hunger Games!

Then the Quarter Quell Card was read.

The Reaping was even more subdued than usual that year. For all that the pool of potential Tributes was much smaller than usual, it seemed like there were more people there- maybe because there were more Peacekeepers. It seemed like the entire Twelve garrison must be in the Town Square, instead of out patrolling as they normally would be.

She almost skipped pulling Katniss' name from the Reaping Bowl. Everyone knew she would be going in- that the female Tribute from District Twelve would be the Girl on Fire, who had volunteered to save her gentle younger sister, whose father had died in a mining accident, whose mother was a healer and whose cousin cared for her very deeply, who was desperately in love with Peeta.

"Haymitch-" she began. She didn't want to say it. He had been a stinky, irritating, absolutely foul drunkard the entire time she'd known him, but she still didn't want to watch him die.

Peeta volunteered before she could finish the Reaping. That wasn't any better.

Watching the other Reapings was worse. Cecelia Nadir- who Seneca had always spoken so highly of, who had been so kind to her when she was just staring out as an Escort, who loved to dance even though her talent was sculpture- had to nearly be torn from her three children (Olena, Harris, and Shephetiah). Darling, dashing Finnick who was loved by the citizens of the Capitol even more than he had loved them was going back in. Old, sickly, Magoria Herretta volunteered to take the place of poor, mad Annie Cresta. Cashmere, the healthiest of all the female Victors from One, volunteers, and her brother Gloss volunteers too, just like Katniss had volunteered for Primrose, and like Peeta had volunteered for Katniss.

"Is this what it's always like for you?" she asked Haymitch later, when Katniss and Peeta were asleep, or at least pretending to be. "When you know the Tributes?"

Haymitch didn't answer her, but he did hand her an unopened daiquiri bottle.

She turned it around in her hands for a long moment, staring at it.

"I think I understand," she said.

Haymitch snorted.

TEN

'Maybe they will change the rules again,' she thought as she watched the Tribute's all hold hands on stage.

Her position as an Escort means that she can't take part in any of the normal activities that surrounded the Games, but she knew people who could- and probably would, given the opportunity, and a little nudge in the right direction. She didn't know Plutarch as well as she'd known Seneca, but he seemed like a reasonable person. Maybe he could be persuaded to allow more that one Victor again.

As the countdown rang out, she pressed a kiss to her middle three fingers on her left hand, and then held them up to the screen.

ELEVEN

There were no Victors of the 75th Hunger Games. The arena was destroyed- it wasn't clear to Effie how- and Plutarch had taken Haymitch and some of the other Victors out on a hovercraft to look for survivors and hadn't returned.

Effie was taken to the Detention Center. Cinna Barr's body was hung outside her cell.

TWELVE

She didn't know there were Rebels.

She didn't know it was possible to feel this hungry.

She didn't know what their plans were.

She didn't know anyone could experience this much pain.

She didn't know District Thirteen was still around.

She didn't know you could get so cold without freezing to death.

She didn't know anything.

THIRTEEN

The rebels found her in her cell two days after they take the Capitol. She was brought to a medical center, and given morphling, and set up in a room with three other people and a television.

Snow's trial was all anyone could talk about. He had killed children he'd been using as human shields, among other things. She wondered how she could do such a thing.

Then she remembered- he'd done it before, for years. She had helped him.

Plutarch stopped by and told her that he would do all he could to protect her. He had helped kill children too. She thanked him anyway.

CAPITOL

Everything changes so fast. She feels empty, dizzy, and light: one small change in the wind and she might just float away.


End file.
